Meaningful Levels and Freedom

George and I had another one of out game design discussions around leveling again, and we talked about what it means to level - and have meaningful levels. We talked about systems that parse out powers every couple levels, and have 'dead' levels stuck in them, where you are just increasing in skill and damage soaking ability. I am not a fan of new powers every X levels, to me, you need something more to keep players interested. Leveling up a chart is cool for some games, but there needs to be that something more, that ability to customize and choose your own path.

SBRPG was admittedly, a game that put you on a strict track. You designed your idea class to start, and you were off and running. You did not multiclass - since you could design the class you wanted at the start, why should you need to buffet your character up the level chart? In one way, you were designing your perfect "TV Action Star" right from level one, and then increasing the star's power up to insane levels. We mostly banned multiclassing, since it did not fit in our game, and the game was better for it.

SBRPG also gave you ever-increasing points as you level to spend on whatever you wanted. Want a freely-improvable skill? Go ahead, buy levels of it. Want a new power? It's gonna cost you, but it's there. Want to raise ability scores? There you go, cost is equal to the next level. You are going to get even more points next level, so go to town and don't worry about conserving them.

We did not care too much about balance, since the game balanced itself - NPCs of the level were designed with the same rules. At high levels, super-ninja agility 40 characters were blasting out 10 or more attacks a turn with guns, melee weapons, rocket launchers, or any other implements of destruction. Offensive ability was high, but weapons were deadly, and defenses could get tricky given a good build.

We did not punish character designers, it was up to the group to call a cheese-ball build for what it was, and hey, people liked the freedom to go wild. You bought the book - it's your right. It was old-school in that mentality where the designers knew they were giving players a toolbox full of power tools, sharp instruments, and chemicals - but great things are created when you cut people free. You can't build a beautiful piece of furniture without dangerous tools, and we let trusted people and let them create.

It was a game written to be a computer programming language, like C++ - you could do something totally lame with it, something destructive, or something incredibly awesome. You can see some object-oriented principles in the design to this day, and the theory of 'simple to play, but build whatever your imagination can dream' is a powerful design theory that holds true, even today.